


El Malei Rachamim

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Gen, Judaism, also ft. cassie and marco in bit parts, and mention of jake and melissa, spoilers for book 54
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-04 00:30:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1760751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>And when some hotshot asshole from the government suggests a cremation and public memorial service, Naomi resists the urge to tell him exactly where he can shove an urn, and looks up the closest chevra kadisha in the phone book.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>How the funeral should have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	El Malei Rachamim

**Author's Note:**

> I was angry that Rachel was cremated because Judaism specifically prohibits cremation! So I had to fix it. However, I am not American and have never been to a Jewish funeral, so please feel free to correct me on either of those things. Many thanks to tumblr user raggedybearcat.
> 
> The title is translit of "אֵל מָלֵא רַחֲמִים" (lit. 'Merciful God') which is a prayer you recite at the graveside.

Two days pass between Rachel’s death and her return to Earth. Naomi is — not glad, but relieved to see that the Andalites have treated her body with respect. Wrapped her in some sort of soft cloth.  _That’s how they bury people in Israel._ The thought floats through her head as she watches an Andalite uncover her daughter’s face. She hasn’t been to Israel since the year after she left school, and she certainly hasn’t been to temple in even longer — but somehow that is the tiniest bit of comfort. In this impossible world that is so different from the one she knew a few months ago (one with no aliens, one where she had three daughters, one where she had not seen war), that matters.  
  
And when some hotshot asshole from the government suggests a cremation and public memorial service, Naomi resists the urge to tell him exactly where he can shove an urn, and looks up the closest  _chevra kadisha_ in the phone book. When she calls, the woman on the other end of the line sounds so much like her mother that she cries, too shocked and worn out and stretched thin to pretend she is not falling apart.  
  
When they come to collect the body, the same woman gives her a hug, and Naomi can’t remember the last time someone held her like she was fragile and precious and worth protecting.  
  
By the time she arrives at temple to see the rabbi the  _chevra_  had given her the name of, she has collected herself, though she is still a pale imitation of the pillar she once was. When he asks Naomi to tell him about Rachel, about her life and her character and the people who were important to her, Naomi is struck by the sudden realisation that she didn’t know her eldest daughter at all. She had been fighting a war for three years without Naomi’s knowledge, so what else has Naomi been ignorant of?  
  
When Naomi turns away, Cassie covers the older woman's clasped hands with one of hers and tells the rabbi about her best friend, the fierce fighter, the determined gymnast, the girl who managed to look flawless even at the most impossible times.  _She could walk through a car wash and come out dry_ , Cassie says, but after that she pauses — and Naomi doesn’t know what she stopped herself from adding. As Naomi looked at her daughter’s best friend, she knows that she will never learn the full story of those three years, and she adds it to the list of things she is mourning.   
  
Despite the urging of various state officials, the funeral is held the next day, waiting only long enough for Dan to arrive.  The words the rabbi tells Naomi to say as he pins a black ribbon on her blazer are bitter on her tongue. _Baruch atah Adonai, dayan ha-emet._ Blessed are You, Adonai, truthful judge. She does not feel like anyone or anything is blessed.

Dan pronounces the Hebrew worse than she does. She can't even take satisfaction in this. She hasn't taken satisfaction in anything since she heard the news.   
  
She slips into the front row next to Cassie. There are more people in the sanctuary than she can remember inviting, but the absences are still glaring. Jake stands alone next to Cassie, without parents or a brother. The bird Naomi came to accept was Tobias is not present either. No one has seen him since the war ended, Cassie tells her when she asks. Melissa Chapman is in the second pew, but only her mother is with her. Her father, Naomi heard — no, her father’s yeerk — refused to surrender.  
  
Naomi hears Marco complaining that the rabbi has clearly never met Rachel, that any of them would do a better eulogy — and she hears the soft grunt as Cassie elbows him to make him stop talking. The rabbi recommended there be no personal eulogies. She is a lawyer, she makes speeches for a living, but she doesn't know where she would start with a eulogy for her own daughter. At least Marco had enough left to be angry about the generic phrases. Kind girl. Valued member of the community. A good daughter. A good sister. A good friend.  
  
The prayers are a jumble of unfamiliar syllables she struggles to wrap her tongue around, but she is glad the Hebrew means nothing to her. She can stop thinking, at least for a little while, and just repeat the sounds. She fought for control through those weeks of being at the hork-bajir camp — now she has no fight left. She knows Rachel died instantly — but she thinks, perhaps, the fight seeped out of her as the blood seeped out of her daughter to stain the floor.  
  
By the time they get to mumbling _El Malei Rachamim_ , everyone Naomi can see is crying — except Jake. It looks like he can't remember how. The foot of space between him and Cassie is cavernous even to Naomi’s eyes.  
  
It is only when she watches Cassie, Marco, Jake and Melissa lift the coffin that she realises all the pallbearers are children. They hoist their childhood onto their shoulders and carry it out towards the cemetery. 


End file.
